Class of ’67 reunites at the original WCHS
Like its students, the school has moved on
Once upon a time, Winston Churchill High School was in the building where Wilson Middle School now exists. WCHS has since moved on. WMS has also moved on. It has been modernized.
On Saturday, a large group of WCHS alumni toured the building as part of their 50th reunion. They hardly recognized any of it.
“I don’t remember this school at all,” said Teri Lazaruk, a member of that group and one of the organizers of the 50th reunion. “It has changed so much.” Jeanne Shea is an organizer and said she was surprised at how different the building is now compared to what it was 50 years ago. She was disappointed that the old home economics class was gone, but was relieved to see it had been replaced by a new foods class area.
“It was my favourite class,” she said. “It was foods and fabric.”
“My favourite class was typing,” said Lazurak. “But these days, people don’t even know what a typewriter is anymore.”
Around 68 people showed up for the WCHS 50th Reunion — 75 per cent of whom were part of that graduating class.
They have come from across Canada, as far away as Ontario.
“A lot of us haven’t seen each other for 50 years,” Lazurak said. “We went away after graduation and lost touch.”
WMS principal Dean Hawkins gave the tour. He said those relationships are what matter, much more than walls and hallways.
“In middle school and high school, those are probablly the most important thing,” he said. “And that’s the thing we always (remind the staff ).
“It’s not the building. In the end, it’s what they get from each other. How they treat each other.”
Not all took the tour. Many, realizing they did not know the school any longer, chose instead to focus on turning the strangers around them to the friends they once knew.
A bright smile, a crisp handshake. Many years to catch up on. How many kids. How many grandkids. What they did with their lives after they left high school.
They also talked about the old days, about being the children of blue collar workers while the “southsiders” — the children of doctors, lawyers, and other important people — were their biggest rivals.
“We were the kids of miners,” one woman says proudly.
They talked about how the world had changed. The women remembered being forced to wear skirts to school — even in weather so cold their legs would freeze.
“Girls today — I can’t believe what they wear,” another woman says.
Many of them grew up together, starting school in Grade 1 and ultimately graduating together, before spilling out into the world like dandelion seeds to live their lives.
“You don’t know who someone is. And then they say their name and it’s like a light bulb,” said Lazurak.
“There’s something about them that reminds you of who they are.”
That spark of recognition often brings with it an image of who that person was. A 50-years-younger image.
“That’s what is so great about it,” said Shea. “Finding out if they were the same person all along.”
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